With a Wednesday deadline to disclose how much cash he has raised this year, Democratic
gubernatorial challenger Ed FitzGerald rolled out the endorsement of former Gov. Ted Strickland in
a final fundraising push.

The FitzGerald campaign released an endorsement video and donation request yesterday featuring
Ohio’s most-recent Democratic governor, who lost to Republican Gov. John Kasich by 2 percentage
points in 2010.

FitzGerald remains the only Democrat to announce a challenge to Kasich, yet Strickland’s
endorsement came because FitzGerald “has convinced me. I am a believer.”

“He gets it,” Strickland said in a teleconference yesterday announcing the endorsement.
FitzGerald did not join him on the call.

Candidates for office in 2014 are required to disclose fundraising totals for the first six
months of 2013 on Wednesday, although candidates usually disclose cash generated virtually to the
last minute to show off their campaign war chests. Strickland said if FitzGerald is “in that
ballpark, somewhere,” of $500,000 — Kasich had raised $516,000 by this point in 2009 — he will have
shown he has gathered support on the fundraising end.

Strickland said FitzGerald’s status as the elected executive in Cuyahoga County could give him
an advantage in vote-rich northeastern Ohio, where Strickland dramatically underperformed the
typical Democratic margin.

In 2010, 84,131 fewer votes were counted for Strickland in Cuyahoga County than in 2006, when he
thumped Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell in the Democratic haven with 71 percent of the vote.

Strickland still defeated Kasich in Cuyahoga County with 58 percent support, but he lost
statewide by 77,127 votes.

“Quite frankly, I am just going to be very expressive here — there are a lot of votes up there
that I didn’t get that I think Ed can get,” Strickland said.

Ohio Republican spokesman Chris Schrimpf said that “if Ted Strickland thinks he lost in 2010
because of geography, he is sadly mistaken.”

“Strickland lost because Ohio lost hundreds of thousands of jobs during his term as governor,
and unemployment skyrocketed.”

Schrimpf said that through this endorsement, FitzGerald “inherits” Strickland’s legacy.

Ohio lost 378,800 jobs during Strickland’s four years — a period that included a devastating
national recession. The state added 55,100 jobs in Strickland’s final year in 2010 as the country’s
economy began its slow recovery, and it continued to add jobs in early 2011.